You stink but not like that

I've heard people talk about pheromones, in regard to humans, from time to time. The belief in human pheromones is odd to me seeing as we're an extremely vision orientated species and the idea that we would need these silent chemical triggers to illicit response in others seems redundant. We are far too complex an animal to use such a system to communicate and that's why such systems are found in insects (and a small few vertebrates and plants).

It also seems most people tend to refer to sexual pheromones when talking about human pheromones but there are plenty other types of pheromones that exist - including alarm and food trail pheromones.

Now, if someone were to tell you that we have alarm pheromones you'd probably question such a hypothesis.
Why would we emit a silent chemical trigger to warn another of danger when we can shout, jump around etc? It's obvious that we have better systems of communication then that of pheromones.

So why do the vast majority of people believe in these phantom sexual pheromones?

Christ, there's loads of reasons why. Word of mouth and pseudo pop science would be the two biggest reasons \ problems.

When you look at some of the studies that have taken place to find human pheromones (not just sexual ones) it all gets a bit messy. While it can't be said for definitive that humans do or do not give of any pheromones it still seems unlikely that we do.

The most famous such study was performed by Martha McClintock. She investigated the synchronization of menstrual cycles among women based on unconscious odor cues. The results seem to suggest such a phenomenon does occur - however recent studies and reviews of the McClintock methodology have called into question the validity of her results.

Sweat is the closest we have to the idea of a human sexual pheromone. In 2008, it was found using MRI scans that the right orbitofrontal cortex right fusiform cortex, and right hypothalamus respond to airborne natural human sexual sweat, providing neural evidence that socioemotional meanings, including the sexual ones, are conveyed in the human sweat.

So, it seems to be a fuzzy subject. Some of the 'pheromones' found in humans don't operate like pheromones do for other animals. We will never base an attraction or future mate on a pheromone. While there are smells, orders and scents we all like and that exist everywhere they are never the basis for attraction.

My whole point really is that causal \ practical discussion of human pheromones is pointless.